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Go West East, OM, Day Five

Monday, May 18th, 2009

war of the windmills

I was up at 6 AM and on the road at 7 AM, which is about 2 hours later than my normal Dayton departure.

As I approached Columbus, I decided to take the southern route through Pennsylvania and avoid the construction delays I ran into on I-80 in Western Pennsylvania on Wednesday. In addition, it would be nice to see some new scenery for a change; not exactly new, I’ve been this way before, but it has probably been about 15 years since I did the southern route, so I was up for it.

I was a little surprised by the amount of toll on the Pennsylvania Turnpike ($10.95 to get from the Pittsburgh suburbs to the I-81 exit near Harrisburg), but it was worth it because there were no construction delays.

On I-81 between Harrisburg and Hazleton, the interstate passes up close to a wind power “farm” and I was very impressed with the size of the windmills; they are huge! The scene of a dozen of these huge spinning beasts in the middle of a Pennsylvania forest reminded me of those Martian tripods lumbering through the Hudson Valley in the 2005 remake of War of the Worlds.

Coincidentally, a few minutes after recalling that scary scene, my sister, Gigi, phoned me to tell me about an episode of UFO Hunters that she had just finished watching! (Thanks, Sis, for keeping me company on the long ride home.)

I arrived home 12 hours and 20 minutes after leaving the Dayton Airport Hotel. APRS coverage was good, but seemed spottier on the Pennsylvania Turnpike vs. I-80.

Traffic was heavy in some spots and almost non-existent in other spots. My gas mileage for the 1600-mile roadtrip averaged 32 mile per gallon; not bad for an all-wheel-drive vehicle with 35,000 miles under its belt.

Every year, after I return home exhausted from the Hamvention roadtrip, I swear that I will never do it again, but time will tell.

Posted in amateur radio, aprs, dayton, films, gas, ham radio, hamvention, motion pictures | 1 Comment »

Surfin’: Radioing Over the Appalachian Trail

Monday, May 18th, 2009

This week’s Surfin’ visits a Web site detailing the effort to traverse the Appalachian Trail by Amateur Radio.

Posted in 144 MHz, amateur radio, aprs, ham radio, hilltopping, surfin' | No Comments »

Go West, OM, Day Three

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

APRS Forum at 2009 Hamvention

Panorama view of the APRS Forum at the 2009 Dayton Hamvention

When I returned to my room last night, I discovered that the hotel’s Internet access was down and was still down when I awoke this morning, so I was not able to write a new blog entry. So I dragged my Mac to the Hamvention and am using a variety of free Internet access points available in the Hara Arena.

Friday was eventful and the weather was excellent.

The forum I moderated (the APRS Forum) had standing room only. There were 15 rows of seats with 20 seats in each row and they were just about full, plus there were probably 50 to 100 people standing, so I estimate 350 to 400 in attendance and very few left during the hour plus of presentations. The only problem was that we ran out of time and had to abandon the question and answer portion of the program.

I spent the rest of the day working the TAPR booth or walking around the convention floor viewing the various exhibit booths. I ran into a lot of old friends and I met some folks in person, who I had only met over the air or over the Internet. There was a lot of interest in the HPSDR project that TAPR is supporting. The booth had two HPSDR transceivers set up at each end of our five-booth spread communicating with each other on 52 MHz and this set up was a big attraction. People could see the “project” in operation.

After our day at the convention, we attended the TAPR-AMSAT annual Dayton banquet. Despite having to drive halfway to tarnation to the site of the dinner, I had an enjoyable time. Dinner was good and I encountered more old friends and acquaintances (some from the packet radio era) and enjoyed the after dinner speaker, Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, a recent tourist astronatut, and son of Owen Garriot, W5LFL, the first astronaut ham. Both father and so were present at the dinner.

I returned from tarnation and found no Internet access at my hotel, so I went to bed about 11:15 PM and fell asleep instantly.

Posted in SDR, amateur radio, aprs, dayton, hamvention, roadtrip, software defined radio, tapr, weather noted | No Comments »

Go West, OM, Day One

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Go West, OM, Day One

Left home at high noon yesterday and arrived at the Super 8 in Clarion, PA, at 7 PM. You can see my APRS track here.

Traffic was light most of the way and I made good time until the last 75 miles of the trip. Construction on I-80 turned the four-lane highway into a two-lane highway and during the last 5-mile segment of construction, traffic moved at a 5 MPH clip! I probably lost close to an hour due to the construction.

Not much activity on 146.52 MHz, but I expect that will pick up today as I approach Hamvention.

A retired couple in the next room have a ham in the family. Their Cadillac SUV does not have ham license plates, but I noticed a call sign made up of self-adhesive letters (the kind you use to identify rural mailboxes) on the back of the SUV; I did not recognize the call and forgot it!

Weather was good driving out, but as I got farther west, it began to cloud up and the temperature dropped. Looking out this morning, the ground looks wet and the clouds are ominous (as you may be able to see in the photo).

Next stop, the Dayton Airport Hotel in beautiful downtown Vandalia, Ohio!

Posted in 144 MHz, amateur radio, aprs, dayton, ham radio, hamvention, roadtrip, weather noted | No Comments »

Surfin’: Go West, OM

Friday, May 1st, 2009

This week’s Surfin’ anticipates the excitement of the Dayton Hamvention.

Posted in amateur radio, aprs, conference, dayton, ham radio, hamvention, radio, roadtrip, surfin', tapr | No Comments »

Surfin’: Making Hay During the Holiday Downtime

Friday, April 10th, 2009

Surfin': Making Hay During the Holiday Downtime

This week, Surfin’ notices the world winding down as the holidays rev up.

Did you know that Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general? If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Posted in ISS, International Space Station, Space Shuttle, amateur radio, aprs, dayton, dx, ham radio, hamvention, outer space, radio, satellite, surfin' | No Comments »

Surfin’: Getting Heathkit Manuals and Getting Smart

Friday, January 9th, 2009

This week, Surfin’ looks for old Amateur Radio manuals online and finds a ham radio in a recent flick.

Did you know that Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general? If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Posted in Heathkit, amateur radio, aprs, films, ham radio, manual, motion pictures, radio, radios, surfin' | No Comments »

Surfin’: Old and New, But Nothing Blue

Friday, September 12th, 2008

Like a bride, this week’s Surfin’ features some new things and some old things, but no borrowed blue things.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Posted in CW, Internet, amateur radio, aprs, browser, ham radio, software, surfin' | 2 Comments »

we have met the enemy and the enemy is us

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

This morning, Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, (the “father of APRS“) posted these wise words on the APRSSIG:

At the ARRL Technical Challenge Forum at Dayton, the ARRL
technology leaders were lamenting that HAM radio needs something
for youth to get excited about. Something like: "Look at how
kids have taken text-messaging as the be-all-end-all excitement
of communications! We need something like that in ham radio!
Why aren't we developing things like this?"

To which I jumped up from the audience and could not contain
myself and exclaimed! "We have! We have had local/global text
messaging and text email from a handheld since 1998 in APRS! It
is exactly what kids are doing today, but we have been doing it
for 10 years! But you know what? All the old fuds in ham radio
say 'How crude.  We need a keyboard.  No one is ever going to
communicate by punching buttons on the front of an HT'!" SO
still, only 1% of ham radio is even aware of this routine global
connectivity from a handheld that we have had for 10 years.

As pogo said, "we have met the enemy and the enemy is us."
Everyone keeps waiting for the "perfect dream" solution and then
they dream of all the things they could do. But you know what?
The perfect dream solution is always in the future. The few
instances in ham radio that really excell in actual needed
practical communications are those that ALWAYS take what they
have and just do the MOST with it, NOW!

Posted in amateur radio, aprs, dayton, ham radio, hamvention, radios, what he said | 3 Comments »

144-MHz band opening

Friday, October 5th, 2007

Two meters was open overnight. Best DX received directly* by my APRS digi station was N3KTX-2 near Frederick, MD, over a 282 mile, 239° path, and N3KTX-8 in Ocean City, MD, over a 248-mile, 207° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

Posted in 144 MHz, amateur radio, aprs, dx, ham radio | No Comments »

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